God -- if he really exist -- is good, alive, self-conscious, and governs all things according to his benevolent and holy providence; but the world shows no indications of such a benevolent and holy Providence. This earth appears to be a hell, or at best a planet condemned -- a sort of purgatory: it is filled with violence, tyranny and injustice, and yet God, if he exist, is absolute sovereign, and has willed that things should be as they are! -- Therefore there is no God.
William Batchelder GreeneThe Federal Government is rendered weak to do wrong, and powerful to do right: for, as soon as it begins to go wrong, it naturally begins to be divided against itself, and the three great wheels of its machinery exhaust their momentum, or wear each other out, in their friction against each other; while, as soon as it begins to go right, all the parts work harmoniously, and exhaust their full strength on the object of their action.
William Batchelder GreeneLike a goddess on her azure hill, the star of my ambition, the mistress of my dream; a thing apart, that we can worship, but not touch; a wild desire, that, in the madness of the thought, soars higher in its dignity, and leaves me weeping in the dust.
William Batchelder GreeneThou Moon! Sun of the Night, Sister mystic of the Day; Look down, pause in thy flight! Calm me with thy aural ray, Enchanting souls to silver sleep. Look down from out thy airy keep, My fevered senses hypnotize; Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies-- Ambitious Mind, with travail sore; Its fibre rest, its calm restore.
William Batchelder GreeneThou slanting rain! Thou Hebe of the Skies, That pours out drink to Earth; thou faithful wife That with moist tears embraces her prone lord. Thou mist intensified; thou double dew That drowns the drought, that heals the parched and burnt -- Thou resurrection rain.
William Batchelder GreeneWhat is it to be rich? It is to have an assured income in excess of expenditures, and to have no occasion for anxiety for the morrow. It is to be above the necessity of living from hand to mouth. It is to be able (or to have grounds to insanely suppose one's self to be able) to live outside of God's providence.
William Batchelder GreeneMarriage may be polygamic, monogamic, polyandric, complex according to the Oneida pattern, or other, and is true marriage (I do not say perfect marriage) so long as it promotes the happiness of the persons married, and the procreation, support, and education of children, and so long as it is founded on the joint free contract of the persons married, and remains under the sanction of the organic society of which those persons are members.
William Batchelder Greene